Posted
by
Zonk
on Thursday March 16, 2006 @11:26AM
from the all-their-base-etc-etc dept.

kaufmanmoore writes "According to an MSNBC report, the head of Google's European arm has said that Google wants to use Google Base for brick and mortar stores to submit lists of goods and prices in order to create an online presence." From the article: "Google would index and package the information into a consumer-friendly search engine, giving its users a virtual supermarket across a number of retail brands. Mr Arora said: 'Google Base is going to have a huge impact on retailers," adding that the move reflected internal research, which found many leading European retailers did not feel they were competitive enough online.'

I get the feeling that this is going to be Froogle+. A step beyound what they're presently doing. The more important question which the story raises is how well this new Google initive compares against what's already out there?

When I'm searching for something online, I'm usually looking for a single item or a set of related items. This usually makes Froogle a good starting point; I search for arcade pushbuttons, and I get links to stores that sell them along with other arcade console items. Poking around a few sites usually leads to one with good prices on the things I want, and I make a purchase.

Really, I don't see the benefit of aggregating content across stores. How often does someone go looking for a doorknob, a picture frame, and a KVM all at once? Online shopping is fundamentally different than shopping at a physical store, but it's not that different: I want to find a competent supplier of each thing, not a one-stop-shop where I have to wonder about the quality of service and related issues. And if they're just showing me info from three different places in a single search, but I am actually making three orders, what's the advantage?

How often does someone go looking for a doorknob, a picture frame, and a KVM all at once?

Have you not noticed the recent Wal*Mart ad campaign? "I went in for chips and salsa, and walked out with this great deck furniture." Or "I went in for hemorhoids cream, and walked out with a new car." That kind of thing.

The point is, when someone's in the mood to browse and spend, the more products you can put in front of them, the more they'll buy. "Stack 'em high and watch 'em buy" is a retail maxim. Why do you think Fry's Electronics (for those unfortunate enough to have one near them) load up their check out lanes with all kinds of random junk? This is just more of the same, present as many products as possible, and people will inevitably buy them. It's just how our culture is.

Why do you think Fry's Electronics (for those unfortunate enough to have one near them) load up their check out lanes with all kinds of random junk?

I just have to say, Fry's fucking rules if you know what you're doing. It's a little bit like going to a sketchy part of town you're not familiar with - you just need to go with someone who knows their way around to avoid getting jacked. If you are aware that you have to always check packages to make sure they have the right product in them, you can do pre

Thanks! Unfortunately, the SJ Mercury News ad has to be viewed in IE, because they fucked it all up as pertains to Gecko. Luckily, I have the IE Tab extension loaded, so I can be so lazy as to not even have to open another browser...

It can be pretty hard to get your hands on it, though, because they're too stupid to put a PDF on their website. You pretty much have to get a sunday paper.

Being a SF Bay longtime resident, I gotta second this... man, I love to read their sunday paper adverts.. it's so dumb of them that they don't just publish this via pdf or something (probably to avoid other stores from "gaming" with their prices).

They're also quite dumb in that up until 1999 or somthing they didn't even have a website... ironically, the

Fry's Electronics (for those unfortunate enough to have one near them)

Dude, unfortunate? Over the years they've let me borrow all sorts for goodies to try out and then return after I figured out they didn't work for me/I didn't need them/I didn't like the color, or whatever.

It is sort of like froogle without the screen scraping. Because the content provider enters the information about the item, there is all kinds of neat attributes that can be used to narrow the search. For example a honda civic [google.com] can be classified by price, make, year, color, model, engine, mileage, door count, and body style. You can actually search for a used 2000-2002 civic sedan with 50-75k miles that costs less than $12,000 and is less than 100 miles from your house. It appears that cars.com has put a

And it's also for brick-and-mortar shops, in case everyone.. I mean someone, forgot to RTFA. That would mean you can search for prices that don't exist anywhere else on the net. As it says in the summary, "in order to create an online presence.", or in TFA: "Some retailers are yet to set up their own internet operations, even though consumer purchases online have soared."

Yeah. Bricks and mortar shops like car dealers and stuff that want to advertise their inventory and prices.
The poster I replied to wanted to know how Base differs from Froogle and implied that he wanted to know why this feature wasn't being added to froogle instead. The big difference is that instead of comparing prices from web merchants, it allows people to find items offered for sale based on detailed criteria including the physical location of the vendor. Is that clear enough for you?

Froogle might have started off screen scraping, but normally you (the merchant) set up an account for your store and then upload a csv text file with the product name, description, image link, product link, etc.

After attending SDWest yesterday and listening to Jeff Barr from Amazon Web Services, I expect Google has to be doing something. I don't mean to evangelize Amazon, but to shed some light on what they have been doing, which was brought to light on the 14th, regarding this online storage. They have web services, which you can program and wot and build your own online businesses with, which for a small brick and mortar, could be quite a bonus (Amazon have worked with small booksellers and wot for years, now anyone can.)

Well if we follow the logic used to say Apple had a monopoly digital music, you don't really need to stifle competition - you just need to be the most successful. Google isn't suing other web companies claiming stolen ideas or whatnot but since they are company most freely associated with the internet they must have monopoly on name recognition.

If you reduce your circles enough, you can find monopolies everywhere.

Well if we follow the logic used to say Apple had a monopoly digital music

Why would we do that? The only antitrust lawsuit pending for Apple is the one in California as far as I know, and California is definitely not a member state of the EU. Virgin tried to sue Apple for anticompetitive behaviour in France, but the court ruled against Virgin [silicon.com].

Face it my friend, in Internet terms we're older than the hills, and the youngsters here are rolling their eyes every time we give a phlegmy chuckle at one of those catch phrases from the good old days. Still, I for one welcome our new Google Base overlords, so long as they have Natalie Portman as their spokesmodel, naked and petrified.

Who is going to be responsible for the accuracy of the information presented?

Will google police stores that advertise one price but sell at another (or just bury more profit in S&H?)

Sounds like a high tech flea market. Without any guarantees this could devolve quickly into a disaster. Is Google prepared to vouch for the information, if not how will they convince people to use a service they won't stand behind?

I agree and also if I find a retailer that seems to have some sort of Google endorsement, I have a "no shananagan" expectation. I'm not saying that Google has to warrent every product sold through these stores, but they can't simply act as a middle man and use their name to woo customers but not offer anything in return to the customers. I'm a little concerned Google is getting itself into something with a lot of competition. Not to say there weren't search engines before and after Google, but searching

...I have wanted something like this for a long time. Even now, as internet commerce is firmly established in the mainstream, you have to work very hard to aggregate all the information you need when you are SHOPPING (as opposed to BUYING) online.

After all this time I still have to spend a lot of time just looking for the best prices for things like replacement computer parts to feed my hobby.

Where I'd like to see this most are for things that aren't easily shipped. TV's, Appliances, etc. The problem is will google be able to pester the businesses enough to keep their inventories updated. I'd be pissed if I drove out somewhere only to find that they're OOS. And no, calling first defeats the purpose of this product IMO.There *is* a reason that these stores don't have a good online presence. It's probably not a web programmer's fault, but more of the stores not being able to integrate the needs o

Actually a lot of stores don't have a strong online presence because they don't want one. They know they are not price competitive and use old world media marketing to get people into their stores, where they can't compare price and their customers basically pay up to 50% more than a competitive online price.

I often prefer to pick up now rather than wait for delivery, so I call the store and give them the online price from a relatively reliable online store, if the bricks and mortar store BS about the unr

then you have the ultimate in Mom-and-Pop competitive advantage to big corporate box retailers. I'd love to be able to find just the right product at a shop down the street than have to go to Best Buy or Amazon.com. Increasing the ability to find their inventories will help immensely.

This is where the moronic book publishers get things wrong - by Google helping consumers actually FIND the crap they sell, they DRIVE business TOWARDS your stupid company. Oh, and ISPs get it wrong too. The only reason we pay monthly fees to get IP service is because companies like Google provide compelling reasons to do so. Otherwise, I'd take up windsurfing or something...

Agreed. I often prefer criteria #2 to #1, particularly when #1 isn't that big of a difference. But there's also a #3, which is "service." I much prefer to give my money to the guys down at the local hardware store, because they actually help me find what I need. Not so for Home Depot. They suck.

The post above is correct. Banks did come up with the term, and their lobbyists had it put into law that banks had to be brick, not wood. Since most of the large, established banks of the time already were brick, this meant their competitors couldn't just rent land and throw up a cheap, wooden building, but had to be willing to cough up the significant extra expense for bricks and masons.

It's the traditional Economics 101 example of businesses protecting themselves by raising barriers to entry into the mar

"Nikesh Arora, head of Google's European arm, said in an interview with the FT that Google wanted companies in retail - and possibly sectors such as real estate - to submit details of their goods and prices. Google would index and package the information into a consumer-friendly search engine, giving its users a virtual supermarket across a number of retail brands."

Typical Retail Executive: "Yes, thank you, Google, for offering me an easy way to redefine the retail brand I've been building for years as just another price player. Would you like me to send over demographics of my key customers and how we reach them via advertising too? Yes? OK, I'll get right on that. (click)"

Google will be teh suxorz. We will be fondly remembering the good old Windows/Linux golden age, when you had apps and data on your own machine instead of hotnetting on your rights-managed, government monitored Googlepod cranial implant.